


A Difference, Maybe

by syjo22



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: "What happens on Vormir stays in Vormir" -Russo brothers probably, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Character Study, Coda, First MCU fic please have mercy, Gen, IDK I have to watch Endgame like 5 more times, Introspection, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), i guess, no beta we die like men, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syjo22/pseuds/syjo22
Summary: Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame. Go and watch it. Amazing movie.





	A Difference, Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: What happens in alternate universes stays in alternate universes. In which Steve Rogers cannot save one person, but maybe he can save another.
> 
> OK tbh I have no idea what this is... please enjoy?

"Steve, son of Joseph" Red Skull says, and Steve thinks _what._

Red Skull looks even more like something out of a nightmare, if he still had nightmares from the 40's. It all seems like thousands of years ago. He hasn't even thought of Schidmt and his cruel, peeling face for years. He seems to levitate, a large, black cloak covering him like some sort of sadistic halo. It reminds him of Vision, which turns his mouth in a twist.

"I'm here to return the Soul Stone," Steve says.

If Red Skull weren't some sort of twisted ghost, he would have raised his eyebrows. "I have been guarding the stone for seventy years," he rasps. "Many have sought it's power, few sought to give it away,"

Well, Steve thinks. It isn't his to give away. It wasn't his to give at all.

He briefly considering looking over the cliff. To see if there's a chance, if he could see Natasha's body, lying pale and limp and  _dead_ , neck and spine snapped in several ways, like how he saw Bucky in his dreams, after the train for so, so many nights—

"I remember you," Red Skull says, and Steve freezes. He grips the remains of the shield in one hand and mjolnir in the other. He's reasonably certain he would win this fight, super solider serum or no. After Thanos, nothing seems to terrify him so much any more.

"Yes," Steve replies, because what else is there to say?

 Red Skull squints at him, but surprisingly says nothing more. He doesn't approach Steve, his expression betraying nothing. He simply... hovers, almost harmlessly, as if those like him could ever be truly harmless.

"If I return the stone," he says, "Will the deal made to get it be undone?" Can he save one person, just one more person—

Red Skull shakes his head. "You know the answer to that, Captain."

For a moment, Steve feels like punching him. For a brief second, it's clear as day to him that this man is the cause of Natasha's death. Of Bucky's torture. Of Tony Stark, half his body charred burnt off, eyes empty. 

But then the fight drains out of him. There is no point. Even with all the time travel in the world, with all the Pym Particles he could snatch, there is no way to change his reality. It is something he has to learn to live with. To move on. 

Steve Rogers is terrible at listening to his own advice. Has been, since 2012. 

He chucks the stone over the edge of the cliff. He likes to think it shattered on impact.

*** *** *** ***

When he enters SHIELD HQ in 2012, he can still feel the gazes of dozens of agents upon him. He used to think it was amazement, a sort of hero worship he shied away from. He knows now, especially in the eyes of Jasper Sitwell, that it is glee. It disgusts him. 

He doesn't really know where to put the mindstone. He puts the stone back in the scepter, for the sake of recognizability, but he refuses to put it back in the hands of Jasper Sitwell. He briefly considers trying to track himself and hand it over, along with a more lengthy explanation than _Bucky is alive_ , but decides to save himself a second fight. In the end, he decides to drop it off at the Avengers floor. They would know what to do with it. 

It's only his luck, then, that he takes only two steps off the elevator before he hears a familiar voice say, "Cap?"

He doesn't want to, he really doesn't, but he turns to face Tony Stark, genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.

Hero. Martyr. _Iron Man_. 

There are a million things he wants to say. They range from  _Bucky killed your parent_ s to _you were right, you were right all along_ to _you died a martyr_ and _I couldn't save you, I promised I would and I couldn't and I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry—_

But he never gets to, because Tony says, "Hey, Cap? Loki's playing dress-up as you again."

He hears footsteps he knows are his as Tony steps towards him, a challenge in his eyes that he used to hate and will never see again, and suddenly he can't deal with any of this. It's too raw, too fresh in a way that tears at his chest and chokes his throat.

So he does the only logical thing and jumps out the window.

To be fair, that exit was nearest, and he couldn't really fight his way through all of SHIELD, plus the Avengers. He tosses Loki's scepter, as gently as he can manage, and it skids to a halt at Tony's feet. It's stupid, it's cowardly, and somehow his heart breaks all over again, as he readjusts the device at his wrist, thinking of the man who built it, of the family he left behind to do so. 

But the laugh he knows _this_ Tony must get, the satisfaction in his tone when he would surely brag, "Loki would rather throw himself out of a building than fight me again," brings the ghost of a smile to his lips as he time travels away. 

*** *** *** ***

"Are you sure about this?" Peggy's voice sounds in his ear. There's no doubt there, just concern. Steve understands. He came back to her, by her point of view completely out of nowhere, with a broken shield and a strange suit a few days ago, only to run back out of her sight again days later. "We don't have any proof of what you're saying—"

"I have to do this," Steve says. "Trust me," He spent hours combing over the stacks of files Natasha left for him (and god, doesn't that name strike loss his heart again), committing ech of them to memory. He knows what he is doing, and he carries them out with a vengeance. 

The broken shield, it turns out, while less aerodynamic when thrown, serves well as a death omen. It cuts through multiple approaching heads, which whip back in shock. It gives him a sense of satisfaction, to see the confusion, then fear in the eyes of these Hydra agents, wondering what the shield had endured to break in half, and more importantly, how it's owner had survived. So when he asks them, all of their allies strewn unconscious on the floor around them "Wo ist der Cryostasis Kammer?" he doesn't have to ask twice. 

There is so much more to do. He's working with Peggy to root Hydra out of SHIELD alongside the weeds in their backyards garden. He still has to acclimate to this century, to seeing Howard when he expects Tony, to watch out for Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff and Bruce Banner. 

And maybe, one day, he'll return to his reality. 

But that comes later. One step at a time. 

He arrives in the chamber, courtesy of the agent's directions. 

He smiles, despite himself. "Hey, Bucky,"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks you to the Russo Brothers, to the cast of the Avengers, for this amazing movie.


End file.
